by Lia Louis
* * *
I make Marv wait outside while I make a tea for Louise, and make sure that there is a sandwich in the fridge for her, covered in foil, ready for her lunch, later. I get changed into my work uniform, my hands shaking with nerves, and when I go outside, I tell Marv I have only fifteen minutes.
“You can walk with me to work,” I tell him, and as much as I will my voice to sound strong, it wobbles.
He smiles at me, sadly, almost embarrassed, and nods. “I’d like that.”
We walk, both of us avoiding each other’s gaze, and instead looking at the houses that line Fishers Way—large and Victorian, bay windows, gravel drives—and the knobbly oak trees that border the street. A mother wanders by, holding a waddling toddler’s hand. Marv smiles at her, and it’s then that I catch a look at him. A proper look, looking with the eyes of someone who is trying to recognize themselves in something. When he smiles, his eyes crinkle, the eyelashes fanning together, crisscrossing. In photos that have caught me mid-laugh, my fair eyelashes look exactly the same.
“I’m really sorry about what happened, Emmeline,” he says, “when you stopped by.”
“Emmie,” I say.
“Ah. You prefer Emmie.”
I nod. “I do. Insist on it, really. Without sounding too much like an idiot.”
“No, I think that’s fair. If you want to be called something, then that is your right.” He nods, slotting his hands in the pockets of his jeans. He talks like a teacher. Well-spoken, authoritative. “Plus, Emmie is nice. I like it.”
I don’t say anything, steeling myself. I am ready. I am ready for an explanation of why he can’t see me. I don’t want one. The fact he doesn’t is enough for me, and no explanation he pulls from the recesses of his brain to justify it will make it better. I’m his child. What excuse could there be?
“I was—I think I was in shock the other day, when you turned up with your pal.”
“I was too,” I say. “Even more so. You knew. I never did.”
“I can imagine, sweetheart,” he says warmly, and I feel shame at the way my heart twangs. Sweetheart. I have a dad and he’s calling me “sweetheart,” like all the dads do in books and on the TV shows I used to watch as a teenager. “I—see, I have a wife. Carol. We’ve been together for thirty-one years. Married for twenty-eight.”
“You and Mum had an affair.”
His eyes close momentarily. “I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings here, but I think it’s best I’m honest.” He takes a deep breath. “But I wouldn’t even call it that. Sorry, Emmie. Well, I’m not of course, for me, but for you, a… one off doesn’t sound very nice.”
“I always knew I was the result of a one off,” I tell him. “Well. That’s what Mum told me. It was one romantic night—”
I see his eyes lift at that and he says, “It was one night. I was in the pub with a few mates. She was there. Katherine. I don’t remember much about it. I’m… so sorry, that sounds dreadful, but well, that’s how it was.”
I pause, adjust the bag on my shoulder and look up, to the sea that appears in the distance as we round the leafy corner of Fishers Way.
“It’s fine,” I say. “I didn’t expect candlelight and music.” Except, I did. I would dream up the night they met sometimes. Dad, with his drumsticks, hair sweaty from the stage, him locking eyes with my beautiful mother across the sludgy grass of the festival, drawn to her, and unbeknownst to him, for a special reason. For me. So I could be born. A miracle result of timing and genetics and science in a tiny window of time, that resulted in my life. Not a local pub. Not a spoken-for man.
“Carol and I had been together over a year, and—it wasn’t really serious, but it was getting that way, and…” Marv shakes his head. “Aye, I was just young and bloody stupid, that’s what I was.”
We walk for a while, and I ask him about his family. He has Carol. They struggled to conceive for years, but he tells me they had a daughter eventually, and that is when I stop in the street, feet frozen to the spot. “I have a sister,” I say. “A half sister. I actually have a—” I can’t speak.
“Yes,” says Marv, his eyes shining. “Cadie. She’s eighteen. At university.”
“Studying?”
“Law.”
I blow out a breath. “God. Wow,” I say, voice breaking. “I have a sister who is studying law at university.”
Marv chuckles.
We walk down to the seafront, ambling along slowly, past the sand, and moored up paddleboats on the beach, and shuttered ice cream kiosks, their stickered menus, discolored and sun-bleached.
“I remember,” I tell him, “that you’d pick me up and we’d walk like this, but I wasn’t allowed to mention it to Mum, or it’d make her jealous she’d missed it. That’s what Den would tell me. And I only ever wanted to keep her happy.”
“I knew about you, Emmie,” he says. “I wanted immediately to be involved, to be a father to you. But Katherine—your mother—she shut me out. As soon as I told her about Carol and that it was a mistake, she shut me out completely. I came to find you when I knew you’d been born. News traveled fast in that pub. Not there anymore. The George it was called. And she refused to let me in. I tried all the time, I really did. And one day, Den answered the door.” He smiles when he mentions Den, his eyes cloudy, and I feel my heart lift at the sound of his name coming from someone else’s lips. “He let me in. He didn’t agree with what your mother was doing. And as much as he loved her, he also loved you. He felt you needed your father, and mostly, I think he felt I should know you too. He came on every outing, though, the man. Hovering in the background, keeping an eye on you…”
“He left us,” I say, and my throat swells as I hear the words.
“No, darling,” says Marv. “He left your mum. Not you.”
“But he never came back to see me. Neither did you.”
“He tried,” Marv says pleadingly. “He really did. But what right did he have? An ex of your mum’s wasn’t exactly going to get him access, was it, to a seven-, eight-year-old girl who wasn’t his own?”
I can feel it now, anger rumbling beneath the surface of my skin. Mum. Mum stopped me being loved. She made me lonely. I could have had Den in my life. I could have had a father in my life. But instead I had nobody. I had her, but I didn’t, not really. She left. Every month she’d leave for a weekend, and as I got older, turned fourteen, then fifteen, they increased, until weeks would go by until I’d see her again. Off touring. Off pretending as though she didn’t have a child that needed her at home. I had Georgia, too, of course, and her family. I had him. Robert. The person I held as Dream Father in my mind. I shudder and gulp down tears and anger about it all, and I feel Marv’s hand touch my arm. When I don’t move, he moves, hesitantly, to put his arm around me, and we stand looking out to sea for a while. I enjoy the weight of his arm. I enjoy the warmth. “My dad,” I want to say to passersby. “This is my dad.”
“Your mum never forgave me,” says Marv, “for never telling her about Carol. But it was a mistake. I messed up, aye, like all human beings do. I was a young lad, really. But that doesn’t mean you should be defined by that mistake for your whole life, Emmie.”
I nod, and I let those words stay there, in the air, to sink into me slowly. “I know,” I say. “I know.”
“And I’d like to see you,” he says. “I know I’ve missed a lot, but… I’d like to build… something.”
“Me too,” I say.
“But you need to give me some time, Emmie. I need to speak with Carol; with Cadie.”
I look to my side at him, spidery veins broken beneath the skin of his face, lips purply, quivering ever so slightly, and I nod. “Time,” I say. “Okay. I understand.”
We say nothing more for a while, walking slowly, side by side to the Clarice. I know, for the first time in my whole life, that I am late, but I don’t care.
At the foot of the stairs of the Clarice’s entrance, I give Marv my phone number, and he says he will call me.
“Fancy place, this, isn’t it?” He looks up at the grand entrance of the hotel, his eyes squinting in the autumnal sun. “They treat you well?”
“They do. Money isn’t great but…”
“They treat you well.” He smiles.
“Exactly.”
“Well, that’s all that matters.”
Marv puts his arms around me again when we say goodbye, his body warm under the shirt and thick fleece he wears, and he pats my back twice with his hand.
When I get into the Clarice, Fox doesn’t mention the fact I am ten minutes late, and instead, puts his arm around me and leads me outside. “Nonsmoking fag break before we do anything, Ms. Emmie Blue. You have to hear about Rosie’s date. You’ll be laughing for the next seven centuries.”
And as I stand listening to Rosie’s horror story of a date gone bad, and Fox shoots me knowing looks over his cigarette, and Rosie holds on to my arm, laughter doubling her over, I think of Marv. My dad. And I realize I don’t feel lonely. In this moment, the empty loneliness that has always followed me around like a chasm, ready to eat me whole, is simply not there.
I feel loved.
I have never seen Louise laugh as much as she is laughing tonight. Her cheeks are red and her eyes are slits and she keeps holding her chest, as if it’s hurting her too much. She’s eaten really well, too, and I only say that because the last couple of weeks I have noticed that half of the sandwiches I make her end up in the food waste box, curling at the edges, and the soup she makes herself sits mostly uneaten in a bowl, the foil never removed. She says her appetite suffers some days, but other times she’s ravenous. This condition she has—one she refuses to talk about really—is erratic with its symptoms. Good days and bad days.
Eliot, beside me, holds the bowing aluminum case of cheesecake, its creamy topping slopped across the base, and rogue biscuit crumbs, rolling. “More for you, Louise?”
Louise shakes her head. “Absolutely not. But thank you.”
“I might have to,” he says, looking at me. “How about you? It was bangin’, wasn’t it?”
“Bangin’,” I repeat.
“What?” he laughs.
“Nothing.” I smile. “Just bangin’. Haven’t heard that in a while. And yes. Do it. Ladle me up.”
Eliot laughs and scoops us both a messy spoonful of cheesecake, then pours on more cream than I would have poured myself. He hands me the bowl with a smile.
“Gosh, I miss being your age,” says Louise, opposite us, across the oil-clothed table. “Being young. Being able to eat whatever I wanted without being up half the night with a box of antacids. Being, oh, I don’t know.” She looks at me, her index finger and thumb pinching the stem of her wineglass. “Young and beautiful.”
“I don’t know about that,” I laugh.
“I do,” says Louise, and she holds my gaze. Eliot looks to his side at me, then at Louise, and laughs. “Ah, come on, I’m waiting.”
“For?”
“For you to tell me how beautiful I am, Louise. How young and handsome…”
Louise lifts her glass with a skinny, veiny hand and, before sipping, says, “You aren’t too bad. Although you need a haircut.”
“And to stop wearing Justin Timberlake’s hats,” I tease, and he laughs and says, “It was one time. It was hot. It was sunny.”
This is the fifth time we’ve done this in two months, Eliot joining Louise and me for dinner. Things have been settled—cozy—for the last few weeks. Quiet, even. Lucas has been working a lot but has decided on a suit. Marie’s been away on business with her dad, and has found her dress (and so have I). I’ve booked a pop-punk band for the STEN party, and its group chat has fizzled to only the odd weekly text. I’ve been working a lot at the Clarice, too, the shifts busier than ever before now that we’re a few weeks from Christmas. And every break I take has been spent helping Rosie take photos, as her Instagram following multiplies by the second. Eliot coming for dinner has become part of Louise’s and my weekly routine. And it’s the time I look forward to every week. The first time he came over was the evening after Marv and I walked to the Clarice together. I’d called Eliot and invited him over for pizza, with Louise and me, and he had come over that night brandishing a bottle of white wine, a four-pack of beer, and a giant chocolate gateau. Every time he comes, it’s the sort of evening that whisks by, the hours flowing, disappearing like water, and every time he leaves, I instantly think about when I can ask him to come next. Eliot is easy. He likes simple things. The pressure is off completely when he’s here. And I’ve even enjoyed the start of winter. It single-handedly whittles me down, the dreaded countdown to Christmas Day, when the Moreaus go skiing, everyone squirrels away with their family, and I sit, as usual, alone, as if it’s another day, sure, this time, that I’m the only human being left in the world.
“I feel like cheesecake is in my bloodstream,” says Eliot now. “But then, it’s Christmas soon. It’s practically law to turn your insides to lard, right?”
Eliot stands on Louise’s doorstep, empty-handed, the wine and dessert he brought over now devoured and drunk by us three, more wine than Louise is used to, as she’s already gone up to bed. Last time he visited, we sat watching Pucked, the Jon Bon Jovi movie I’d somehow missed, and he stayed until well after midnight, his hand under the blanket occasionally brushing my leg, and even that hadn’t felt long enough. But I’m glad. I’m glad I’ve let that gap between us continue to be slowly bridged, because it feels so much more natural, so much easier to let it. I keep thinking about what Marv said, and it has stuck. That someone shouldn’t be defined by one mistake for the rest of their lives.
“Do you have to go? It’s only nine thirty,” I say.
He steps back onto the gravel of the driveway, hands in pockets, and says, “I don’t want to. But I’ve got a lot of road to cover tomorrow, haven’t I?”
I nod, try to stay poker-faced, but I’ve been dreading saying goodbye to him this time. Because I won’t see Eliot until after Christmas now. He’s working on a building site in Northumberland—a run-down country estate—for the next fortnight. And then he’s away with Ana. With her family for Christmas. He never talks about her. But then, I avoid bringing her up.
“Well, enjoy sawing wood in Wrexham,” I say.
“Hexham.” Eliot smiles.
“Ah,” I laugh. “And Luxembourg after that. It is Luxembourg, isn’t it?”
“It is,” he says, nodding, and I cannot ignore this sinking heart in my chest. Lucas and Marie are counting down to their skiing trip in Austria with Jean and Amanda. Rosie is off, too, for Christmas week, going to Nottingham with her parents to stay with her sister and her husband until New Year’s. Even Fox won’t be at the hotel for the Christmas dinner shift, like me, on Christmas Day, because he’ll be in London with his dad. And Eliot. Eliot will be hundreds of miles away. In Luxembourg. With Ana. (Or psychothera-bitch as Rosie calls her.) And me. I’ll be right here, pretending it isn’t happening.
“So, will you be seeing Lucas over Christmas at all, before skiing, or after, or…” Eliot trails off.
“No,” I say, arms hugging my body from the cold. “He hasn’t really mentioned it, and I know he’s super busy with work so…”
“Right.” Eliot nods. “And you. Any Christmas plans?”
“Work on Christmas Day, most of the day,” I say with a small smile. “Louise has been invited somewhere. An old lodger of hers. Steve or something. She said she doesn’t fancy it, though.”
Eliot nods again. “So you won’t be alone?”
“Definitely not,” I say. “I’ll be with one hundred Christmas-hat-wearing dinner guests and three hotheaded chefs.”
Eliot smiles, standing tall opposite me. He hesitates, looks over the shoulder of his thick, black wool jacket, and I will for this to fizzle; this awkward, crackling atmosphere between us. “Your neighbors,” he says eventually. “They know how to party with the ol’ decorations, don’t they?”
I smile.
“I know. There’s a rivalry. See who can cover their house in as many tacky lights as possible and get in the local papers.”
Eliot raises an eyebrow. “Well, I think number Two Fishers Way could do with an injection of tacky lights, actually.”
I shake my head.
“I dare you,” he says, “to stick a few lights up. Buy a turkey. Stick a Christmas film on. Eat a mince pie by the fire in front of the EastEnders Christmas special, even if you’ve never seen an episode in your entire life.”
I narrow my eyes. “Sounds… interesting.”
“It’s a sort of magic, actually, Emmie Blue,” he says, smiling, his words making clouds in the icy November air. “So, listen. I got you something.” He rubs his hands together, striding over to his truck, opening the door. “I didn’t want to give it in front of Louise. Thought I’d wait,” he says, leaning into the truck. “I know you get all embarrassed and hate opening things in front of people…”
“You didn’t need to get me anything,” I say, surprised.
Eliot closes the door, walks across the gravel toward me. “I know I didn’t.” He smiles. “But I saw it and immediately thought of you. It’s no big deal.”
He hands me a beautiful tissue paper–wrapped rectangle. The paper is gold, flecked with stars, and it’s tied with black, sparkly ribbon. “The dude in the shop wrapped it. Don’t give me any of the credit.”
I look down at it in my hands and feel something tug in my stomach. A gift. I don’t really get gifts at Christmas. Lucas and I have never really done presents, and probably because he knows I don’t “do” Christmas, and have never done it.
“Thank you, Eliot,” I say.
“Don’t open it now,” he says. “Save it. To open with your mince pie and EastEnders special.”
“I will.”
“Promise me you’ll do it in that order?” says Eliot, stepping forward.
“I’ll try it,” I laugh, and reach up on tiptoes and put my arms around his neck, my hand still grasping the gift in one hand. His arms envelop me, his warm hands brushing the bare back peeping from under my jumper. Goose bumps prickle my skin. I kiss him on the cheek as we draw back, and say thank you again, but Eliot doesn’t release his arms from around me, and I don’t either. Our faces are close. Our breath making clouds in the air between our mouths.